October always has been one of my favorite months. There’s just something about
the crisp air, the brightly colored leaves and the pumpkin population-explosion
I love.
I also love Halloween,
the national holiday for sweets lovers (I’m pretty sure my dentist loves it,
too). But even though mountains of free toothache-and-bellyache-inducing candy
are my equivalent of heaven, I honestly enjoy the Halloween costumes even more.
While searching for
something in the basement the other day, I found a trunk filled with my old
Halloween costumes. The moment I pulled out the first one, I was transported
back to my childhood.
When I was a kid, my
Halloween costumes never were store-bought or something predictable like a
witch, a ghost or a princess. No, my mother, who was a talented
seamstress, always designed and sewed original costumes for me.
One year I was a female
Zorro, wearing a black skirt, hat, cape and boots and carrying a fake sword.
Another year, I was a firefly, complete with wings that were covered with tiny
blinking lights that hooked to a battery pack, which, back in those days, was
considered to be both innovative and “ooh” inspiring. And then there was my
Spanish senorita costume...a gown with layers of red and black satin ruffles
trimmed with gold sequins and accessorized with a rose-adorned tiara with a lacy
black veil (mantilla).
But as clever as I
thought my costumes were back then, they couldn’t hold a candle to many of the
costumes I’ve seen since, especially when I lived in a busy neighborhood where
it wasn’t unusual to have at least 100 trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. I
swear, some parents must have spent months thinking up and creating some of
those costumes for their kids.
I remember one girl who
came dressed as a dining-room table. The cardboard table was adorned with a
white tablecloth, dishes, silverware and napkins, all solidly glued down.
Popping up through a hole in the middle of the table was the girl’s head, which
was decorated like a centerpiece of colorful flowers. I was worried the poor
kid would kill herself trying to get down my porch steps because there was no
way she could see her feet.
Then there was the boy
whose costume was a giant box of Corn Flakes. The box was covered with fake
blood and the boy was holding a big plastic knife, also with blood on it.
Confused, I asked him what he was supposed to be.
“A cereal killer,” he
answered in a tone that told me he was insulted I’d even had to ask.
Another little boy came
as a giant tooth with a smiley face painted on the front. The top right side of
the tooth had a prominent cavity in it that actually was a good-sized
hole.
“Just put the candy
directly into the cavity,” his mother said with a shrug. “It’s where it’s going
to end up in his real teeth anyway!”
One girl, a teenager, was
dressed in a skeleton costume. The puzzling part was she also was wearing high
heels, an evening gown, dangling rhinestone earrings with a matching necklace and bracelets, and a long, glamorous-looking brunette wig.
“Let me guess,” I said
as I handed a candy bar to her. “You’re supposed to be the skeleton of a rich woman?”
“I’m not a skeleton,”
she answered. “I’m a fashion model.”
Her companion was a girl
who was wearing an old bathrobe, baggy flannel pajamas, big pink hair curlers
and fuzzy slippers. She had white makeup smeared all over her face and an unlit
cigarette dangling from her mouth. “I’m my mother,” she said, before I even
could ask.
But there was one
costume that really scared me, and I’ve never figured out how it was made. I
opened the door to see a tall, headless guy dressed in a long black cloak.
Tucked underneath his arm was a decapitated head. I figured the guy’s real head
was somewhere up in the neck part of the costume, and there probably were
eyeholes in it so he could see. As I searched for the eyeholes, the
decapitated head under his arm suddenly moved, looked at me and said, “trick or
treat!” I was so startled, I jumped. That had to be one of the most
creative costumes I’ve ever seen.
No, I take that back.
The award for creativity has to go to three college-aged guys who, on the spur
of the moment one Halloween night, decided they’d like some candy. I opened my
door and there they were, not wearing costumes, but kneeling on my porch, their
hands clasped in front of them.
“Trick or treat!” they
shouted in unison.
“I’m not giving you any
candy,” I said. “You’re not even wearing costumes.”
“Yes we are,” one of
them said, smiling broadly. “We’re three praying mantises.”
Heck, I then felt
obligated to give them the candy just for originality.
Where I live now, in the
middle of the woods, I’m lucky if I see 10 trick-or-treaters on Halloween. And
when I do, they usually are dressed like one of the Marvel superheroes, so the
days of creativity and imagination seem to be gone.
My faith partially was
restored last year, however, when I saw what appeared to be two
trick-or-treaters (one in the front and one in the back) sharing a very cool,
very realistic-looking deer costume, come walking up my driveway.
I thought, “At last!
Something different instead of Spider-Man, Iron Man or Wolverine!”
But for some reason,
when I opened the door, waiting for them to come get their candy, the kids in
the deer costume dashed off into the woods.
Go figure.
# # #
(This was the last costume my mom ever made for me. It was back in the '80s, when I was invited to a Halloween party and decided I wanted to go as a rock star. It was a glittery copper in color. I thought the wig she included was pretty cool!).
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
